What we ended up with was a different take on what critic Tim O’Neil described as “momentism” – “a style of writing predicated on the singular iconic ‘moment’ as the indissoluble element of superhero writing”. The powerhouse writers of DC, Geoff Johns and Scott Snyder, are the current kings of momentism: their books filled with blockbuster ‘story beats’ and the kind of “whoa – did he just?” splash pages that fans have long adored. Marvel try this too – their event comics have plenty of badass violence, heroic speeches, hammers smashing through chests, etc. – but for me it never quite comes off: epic momentism doesn’t feel like the natural mode of any of their current main writers (and all the better for it).

Instead what Young Avengers, and Hawkeye, and the more interesting end of Marvel Now! give us is a quieter, slyer, character based soft momentism – single- or double-panel vignettes that shed light on a protagonist. The last two issues of Young Avengers – a multi-artist jam about a new years’ party – are just full of them: Billy and Teddy’s dancefloor embrace, Loki’s flirting with David, America’s closing remark to Kate, and of course Loki’s photograph. Sometimes they reveal something new, even turn a character inside out. More often they’re just funny, or sad, or sexy. They give you feels.

§ If you’ve been reading the Beat you may have noticed a comment uproar over this post. This post was also picked up by an Italian comics news website, and i have to confess, even in the notoriously awful Google translation, their interpretation says better than I could what I though the post means:

One of the most deeply rooted clichés on comics (especially the mainstream / superhero) wants readers are only males. In almost any movie or TV series starring one or more nerd, sooner or later, comes the scene where comic books in their confidence comes a girl, leaving everyone in an awkward state of aphasia caused by the exceptional nature of the event. Because, you know, girls do not read comics and if by chance they do, read the manga.

Hundreds of fans, family members and friends dropped by the ballroom of Claremont Hotel on Sunday afternoon to say their final goodbyes to the well-known Oakland-born cartoonist.

§ Writer Antony Johnston unpacks some numberson his comics orders and reveals that it’s STILL between 10-30% of comics shops that will order a book that isn’t Marvel or DC. My advice is to just let the ones who don’t love their lives as they wish and go on with our own.

Webcomics 102, and I didn’t mean this to be more about the great comcis gender divide, but…

Another reason why I find webcomics to be widely important to read is because of who writes them. A majority of the popular webcomic artists on the internet are female. This is important because the number of women working in the big comic book companies in the industry is very, very small. Women in the comic book industry are often poorly represented in the office and in print. Comics are still seen by many as a “man’s world” type of industry and cater to male interests above all else. While some companies are better at including proper female representation in comics now (to deal with the backlash of former sexist portrayals of characters) women still have a hard time breaking into the industry. So the fact that women are dominating the webcomic scene is monumental.